Chapter 1

St. Agnes's orphanage was an austere and dark building. It was located on the outskirts of the city of Chicago, in the middle of a large forest that seemed restful during the day, but at nightfall lost all its semblance of charm and became more terrifying. Once past the heavy wrought iron gate, surmounted by the name of the place in large rusty letters, "St. Agnes Catholic Orphanage", we entered officially the perimeter of the establishment, surrounded by grids that were lost further in the woods. It was then necessary to go up a long alley lined with big green trees in summer and skeletal in winter. The orphanage could be seen from a distance and gave off an aura of severity and disuse. Although it was quite large, it usually housed between 200 and 240 children, aged 0 to 18, but it was falling apart, mainly because of lack of funds. It must be said that he was over 200 years old. The facade cracked on both sides, and the ivy was frolicking happily, even on the dirt-impregnated windows. Furthermore, if the place was creeping you out when you looked from the outside, inside it was a hundred times worse. Atmosphere horror movie.

One thing was certain: Skye wasn't happy to return to this place she knew by heart. She was only twelve years old, but she had spent most of her young life here, except when she was away, in various host families she had always left. She must have recognized - despite herself - that this damn building was the closest thing to a house. A creepy house, however.

Skye winced in the back of the car that brought her back to the place she cursed. Her head resting on the window since she got in the car, she had been in her thoughts all the way. At the front, Mr Baker had said nothing, just looking at the road. It was not worse. Skye had only been in his home for a month, and she didn't like him. As a rule, she loved no one and no one loved her. A fact which had stopped touching her long time ago. At least she was trying to convince herself. She was hoping for nothing and it was better like that. To hope for something and to lose it was worse than never expecting anything, a lesson she had learned relatively early. Anyway, if Mr. Baker had never touched her, or tried to hurt her, he was easily angry and had trouble controlling his emotions. For four weeks he ran into the girl's silence and cold anger. He had finally reached his limits.

The car stopped in the gravel yard, squealing tires, pulling her out of her thoughts. She didn't wait another second and unhooked the seat belt. She opened the door and went down, grabbing her simple black backpack as she passed. Mr. Baker imitated her and walked to the entrance, motioning for her to follow, his face closed. She raised her eyes to the sky.

"Woof woof," she grumbled, following him nonetheless.

She had barely passed the wooden doors that she felt her shoulders grow heavier. She took a deep breath, detailing the dismal and decrepit entrance. Sister Anne, who was passing, a pile of linens in her hand, blinked as she stopped.

"Mr Baker? What are you doing here, is there a problem with Mary Sue?"

Skye suppressed a grunt at the name agreement that the sisters had given her when she was only three months old, the day she was placed here. Mary Sue Poots. Seriously! Skye didn't know what they had smoked that day, but it must have been really good to think about naming a little girl Mary Sue Poots. Whatever.

"I bring her back to you," said the man simply, as if her was only a faulty object that he was giving back to the seller.

Sister Anne narrowed her eyes and directed them to the girl, implicitly asking what she had done again. Skye rolled her eyes and folded her arms. Of course, everything was still her fault. The cold young woman put her linen on a dresser and asked the man to follow her.

"You're waiting there," she ordered to Skye.

"At your orders," she mumbled, letting herself fall heavily into a chair in the waiting room.

She didn't have to wait a long time, the few minutes it took for the man to fill the papers officially discharging the burden she was. She saw him leave without giving her a look.

"Come, Mary Sue!" sister scolded from her desk.

In a very mature way, Skye tilted her tongue towards the voice before getting up. Once inside, she raised her eyebrows as she closed the door.

"You'd better correct your attitude right now, Mary Sue", sister Anne said slowly.

"Or what?" she replied.

Sister Anne sighed but didn't reply and pointed to the seat in front of her.

"Take a seat."

Skye obeyed after a second of hesitation. The woman stared at her for a few seconds in silence; Skye could feel that she was angry.

"It was your fourteenth foster family, Mary Sue. Your chances are dwindling. You have to correct your attitude. Mr. Baker told me about your insolence, your lack of respect and your coldness. If you don't make an effort, you will never find a family, Mary Sue. You really have to calm down. For the moment, you stay here, but I warn you: if the next family that welcomes you brings you back to us with such comments, you will go to a correctional house, which would not be worse for me."

Skye clenched her teeth. She had spent two months in a recovery center when she was 8 years old and was therefore well placed to know that it was really unpleasant. She tried to calm her breath and breathed, with a defiant look on her face. Sister Anne looked at her, shaking her head, mumbling that she had the devil in her, and then she put away the teenager's file and reached out her hand.

"Your bag."

Skye gave it to her. The rules of the orphanage were very strict and stipulated among other things that most of the things considered "not necessary" offered by host families were systematically confiscated when the children returned to the orphanage, so that everyone would be equal and that it doesn't generate jealousy. Spiteful, Skye saw Sister Anne steal the MP4 and Mr. Baker's ear buds, along with a bunch of sweets and school supplies she thought she could do without (which included several brightly colored pens, among others, she loved, as well as her crayons and her markers). Then she handed her her bag, ignoring the wet eyes of the teenager who considered the process humiliating and cruel.

"Standing", she ordered.

She got up and the woman examined her from head to foot.

"Your sneakers", she said.

They were new. Mr. Baker had bought them to her because the school he had sent her to had required shoes in better condition than the old, faded pair of holes she still had. Skye frowned and eyed the shoes she loved. They were blue and black, and much more comfortable than the others, who were spinning bulbs.

"You know the rules, Mary Sue", sister Anne snarled.

The girl sighed without trying to hide her insolence, but she resigned herself to taking off her shoes without leaving the sister's eyes and without hiding her anger.

"Good," said the sister dryly. You will be able to reinstall yourself. Room 207. You'll start school tomorrow, but not with others, considering what happened last time you were here."

Normally the children of the orphanage had classes at the local school, which was about twenty minutes walk. The students went with two sisters who came to pick them up at evening. Skye hated this school of arrogant bumps that kept beleaguering Saint Agnes' "without families" and "unwanted". She had been to a lot of schools but this one was the worst, and she was glad she didn't have to go back.

"Where am I going?" she asked.

"At Roosevelt Junior High School, a public school thirty minutes from here. You will go there and walk home alone, since we will not assign you a sister just to accompany you. It is in your interest to return at the end of the class, except if you have a particular excuse such as a support class or a group assignment for example. It's clear?"

"Like rock water," the girl quipped, her throat tied.

Sister Anne dismissed her after giving her the plan to go to school, and Skye pulled her bag across the building onto the girls' second floor. She had just left the stairs when a girl a little taller than she shoved her, sending her to the ground. Her wrist hit the wall and she moaned in pain as she looked up. A new groan escaped her when she realized who had jostled her. Lorelei the manipulative plague of service, and her clique of degenerates who treated her like a celestial queen. It was almost hilarious. And resolutely pathetic.

"Are you back, Mary Sue Poots?" inquired the big perch, mocking. "Nobody wants you, right? And unfortunately, we must still stare your face of dirty half-Asian!"

Skye got up and dusted her oversized T-shirt with holes, ignoring the tightness of her wrist. Eyes down, she picked up her bag and tried to get through the group of sluts, without success, because Lorelei pushed her away immediately. She struggled not to fall again and decided that she had enough. Unfortunately, self-control was not one of her qualities-if she had even one quality, which was far from being the case according to the nuns.

"I think you're there too, right? Looks like nobody wants you either, and you're fifteen. In other words, you're done, right?"

Skye knew that replying would only get her into trouble, but she couldn't help it. Lorelei raised her arm and slapped her. Skye felt her head go to the side and her lip burned. She felt the metallic taste of blood invade her mouth. She closed her fists and retorted pushing the redhead. Lorelei stumbled and banged her head against the wall. She sat down and Skye saw that she had opened her forehead.

"What is happening here?" asked a voice.

Sister Beatrice came down and covered the scene with her eyes.

"Mary Sue? Can I know what you have done yet?" she accused.

"We only wanted to ask her why her foster family brought her back," Lorelei whined, "but as soon as I greet her, she ran to me and hit me."

The others hastened to confirm her version. Sister Beatrice turned her head to Skye. The teen shrugged her shoulders, not trying to defend herself. It never changed anything, the majority of sisters didn't believe her, considering her as a "bad seed", a girl with problems, impulsive and always causing trouble. Sister Beatrice didn't escape the rule. Without taking into account the girl's slit lip, she deprived her of lunch and dinner and dismissed her in her room for the rest of the day. Skye squeezed her lips and left without a word, refraining from saying that she didn't care. As a rule, she didn't eat much.

She arrived in the room she shared with five other girls and sat on the bunk bed, the bottom one, available at the back of the room. She unpacked the little things she had to put them in the locker under her bed. Then she spent the next hour dislodging a slat next to the locker to hide the only precious items she held. If the sisters took away almost everything, the objects bequeathed by the biological parents to the babies who arrived here were left to them. It was usually swaddling, or a word, or jewellery. For Skye, it was a mint green blanket, a gold pendant key and a teddy bear. She had to hide them on each of her returns, otherwise the other children would steal her.

This done, she sat down on the bed and watched the room, obviously far too small for six people. She sighed, empty-minded. She was tired. Her nightmares had kept her awake last night. She felt weary and tired, and unable to think, which in her case was not such a bad thing because she thought too much, which caused her a lot of anxiety attacks she had trouble extricating herself. She sighed as she ran a hand through her unruly hair, and then lay down, her face turned to the wall, trying to ignore the pain that was growing in her, forcing her way into her exhausted heart.